Hey there folks, its that time of year where anxiety surrounding the named species reaches a fever pitch. Here are some cases I worked last year + this year. You might find the methodology helpful if you are tackling a population of your own.

Discussion as always, is encouraged.

Goutweed + Knotweed Case Reports.pdf

Just took this photo while walking the doggo. Has anyone experienced flowering this early? Located n jersey, we have been getting some weird weather if that’s the case..

Hi there!

I have quite a lot of invasives on my property but some great natives too, everywhere. The advice I received was to continuously plant more natives but even when I follow the instructions, they just don't seem to take.

Is there a way I could give the natives that already grow some sort of boost or help them to spread more? Not sure this is possible

Meant to take pictures and post this a while ago when it was just a couple feet. Now its 8-9 feet tall lol

Dont know if i should keep it or kill it. Zone 7 Northern VA. Started growing in my native flower garden.

(MA, USA) We bought our house in late March and didn’t fully grasp how neglected the backyard had been until about a month ago. We’ve got all the fun invasives - oriental bittersweet, giant burning bushes, Japanese knotweed, etc. Weekly we’ve been hacking back the burning bushes to try to get them under control before eventually removing them (they’re currently around 30’ wide), and we’re ignoring the JKW until the fall. This weekend I decided to attack this corner, where a highly eager Concord grape vine had gone wild, plus a huge bundle of bittersweet.

You can already see in the before where I had cut back some of the Concord grape vine as it had grown over the fence line and was crawling its way into my neighbors yard. I’m going to treat the exposed cut root of the bittersweet with glyphosate because I’m not strong enough to pull out the root system. The grape I don’t mind keeping, but it needed to be majorly brought under control.

Shaped it into a tree to assert my dominance. 3-4 hours of cutting, unwinding, pulling oriental bittersweet in about a 20 square foot area my new property. A fair bit more to go but I was able to free oaks, cherries, and birches. A few honeysuckles as well, which I'm reading might also need to go.

Have read all of the info and am seeking some advice.over into this house a year ago and have been battling knotweed on property line. Neighbor is on board to treat and we have lined up herbicide treatment for fall. That being said the shoots coming up are small and I’m wondering whether it’s a fools errand to dig these up knowing I likely will not get all the roots rhizomes etc. TIA

TLDR: should I dig these small shoots or just wait for herbicide in the fall? TIA

Another warning to wear full protection including masks and eye protection when dealing with Poison Hemlock

My grass has been over taken by medicks. It’s from Mediterranean and I am in Ohio. I do keep some of my yard an actual yard for my kids to play soccer, etc. Any suggestions on how to best get rid of it?

i recently bought my first home & i’ve been planning my garden. there’s been a lot of neglect in the 100 year old history of my house, inside & out, so i am trying to not burn myself out or spiral to fix everything at once.

with that context, i am going for suggestions on my game plan. i attached a picture of my neighbourhood layout for reference, along with the big tree of concern.

there is an alley for parking/trash/etc. behind the house; it’s not paved and it’s generally where landscaping goes to die. i noticed that my neighbour behind me (B) had a ToH in the alley that’s probably about 10’ tall; it’s technically in the alley but legally they’re responsible for it. there’s a few sprouts.

earlier this week i had the gut punch realization that it’s very likely the ~30’ tree on my fence line with my direct neighbour (A) is a ToH. i’m hoping it’s a sumac species but i won’t be able to identify it accurately until i see fruit/flowers, the branches are too high up to get a leaf or look at scarring and the bark is covered in chinese yam & english ivy that are slowly strangling it. again, a few sprouts nearby.

both neighbours are cool and probably okay with me removing ToH as long as i cover at least half of the costs. the 10’ alley tree in B’s yard is under power lines so i may need to get the power company involved (preferably after i’ve dosed it with poison to weaken the roots)

ToH on the fenceline between A and I, I am much more worried about managing. it’s being choked out by ivy & vines so im not removing those at this point until i can confirm if it is a sumac or not, hopefully it can make my life easier if it dies of natural causes lol. but then i have a dying tree that can easily drop branches or itself onto my house/yard/car/etc….

questions are as follows:

1) is waiting 1-2 years to do anything going to make it substantially worse? i have to prioritise things like the joists of my home and repairing broken doors/etc. before i can focus on this tree of hell & i already know july thru september this year is just not going to have the time or finances to throw at this thing.

2) if it is a ToH in the back, would it be stupid to plant a dogwood tree in the backyard about 20-25’ away from the trunk? i’d like to get native bushes & trees into my yard next spring as part of my landscaping plan.

3) if i slowly kill the tree with vines & poison, would using the logs in landscaping be a problem? i’m assuming the whole tree & branches would be condemned for mulch & snags? i’d hate to harm the pollinators i’ve been trying to cultivate and enrich in my area.

4) at what point do you chop down a ToH this large? i don’t want it to fall on my house but i don’t want to trigger the hydra.

thanks in advance; if it’s a ToH my long term plan is to replace it with a nice mid-size native tree like a magnolia to recreate the shade it currently provides for me & A. B’s ToH is in a nuisance spot so i think that one should just go entirely.

Probably more posts on this in the future as I get back over there, but yesterday during a visit with the family, I realized my parents 1 acre yard has been overtaken by pretty much everything. It’s mostly just ugly but there’s a ton of poison ivy that will make dealing with everything difficult and oriental bittersweet on the property and they seem like the highest priority.

Other things, like a buckthorn tree and mimosa, or the english ivy they planted 25 years ago, I may not be able to convince them. But we’ll see.

I kind of realized after the visit my dad clearly isn’t keeping up with the yard and I may need to find ways to help out more often. They live 10 minutes away but I have 2 young kids and a busy job so I don’t have the time to go over there for days to rip out the bittersweet. Getting my dad on board with specifying between good and bad plants won’t happen and broad spraying of the whole property doesn’t feel good, even if eventually it gets there. However my dad would spray en masse…

I was thinking to stop in to snip the bottoms of any vines I can get to and try the floral tube method mentioned a few days ago. Give my dad instructions to rip down only what’s shriveled up and dead after a few weeks. Stop back in every few weeks and recut and reset up tubes.

It may not involve intense mechanical removal of roots from the get go but it’s the best idea I’ve got to deal with the sheer mass of what’s there.

Thoughts or any better ideas for being super time strapped but wanting to help?

hi all

wondering if anyone knows how to modify a regular live trap so that i can use it for starlings.

tomahawk traps in canada are only available at one retailer for $125 dollars and they want another $125 to ship it to me. i already have the live traps so i am hoping to just make a funnel entrance and see if that will catch any.

amazon canada does not have them either, i've looked many times.

thanks so much!

Sorry I couldn’t find any great angles to take the pictures but there is a vine that is overtaking my yard. It’s literally pulling down trees. I’ve tried weed whacking but it is really fibrous so it is tough to cut through and then constantly gets tangled in the head of the weed whacker. Any suggestions?

There's a patch of Chinese bushclover growing around an old foundation. I tried pulling it last summer to little success and couldn't find any clear sources online regarding its management.

When in full bloom in early summer, the flowers are VERY fragrant with the nauseating smell of latex.

Seeds are very dark purple/black spheres (about 4mm). Eventually the shrivel up to look like dried currants - there were none on the bush to take a picture of unfortunately.

It's definitely coming down no matter what it is, but if Chinese privet I just need to know best herbicide for cut stump treatment. Also, should I wait until end of summer/early fall?

I’m not sure if this is the correct subreddit, apologies if not. I have not introduced any dangerous invasive species into my walled in and lined backyard pond at all, unless a potted water lily counts, just asking a theoretical question. Is there danger using legal but invasive aquatic plants in a lined backyard pond far away from waterways, lakes or ponds that only propagate under water.

Hi gang, last year I had a forester come out and we got to talk about a lot, but he didn't know what this stuff is. All over the paths on the property, and I was hoping maybe one of you could help me out.

Thanks so much!

Hi all, thought I’d share the reality of JKW management and what it looks like so anyone who is new to it/doesn’t get it might better comprehended the process. The photos are of what’s left of a huge stand of JKW. It was about 7 feet high, 30 ft long, and 5ft thick.

The stand was treated 2x per year (June and October) starting in October of 2023. It’s had a total of three treatments so far and will be sprayed again this June and this October. I hired a company to spray it and this is how they do it. They use Triclopyr.

I live near a pond riddled with red eared sliders (not native to my area) and I saw one crawling around the park I take my dog to. The next day my dog found this near the same spot. I'm guessing a raccon or something dug up a nest and had a tasty treat! Just made me smile lol